Psychic for Hire Series Box Set

by Hermione Stark

  I’d leapt at the chance to take this job. It gives me the opportunity to hunt down the serial killer DCK — the Devil Claw Killer — who had murdered my biological mother and wants to murder me.

  On the podium James Fenway has started addressing the press in a brave voice. Clearly the presence of his elder niece Eliza at his side indicates that he is giving her his full support. As he speaks he thanks his neighbors and friends for their support this past week, and asks the press to respect his family’s privacy at this difficult time. Then he begins planting the blame firmly on the shoulders of Mustafa Salehi, the cheating boyfriend who must have seduced and deceived his vulnerable youngest niece. He even thanks the Agency for taking the murderer into custody.

  The murderer. As if Mustafa Salehi has already been tried and found guilty. Storm is standing behind Fenway with his arms crossed over his chest and a stony, unreadable expression on his face. He has enough self-restraint not to be gritting his teeth like I am. James Fenway clearly wants this matter wrapped up fast. His excellent storytelling has almost got me believing what the man himself desperately wants to believe. That Mustafa Salehi deserves to rot in hell.

  My, what a seductive way he has with words, says a little voice inside my head. He really knows how to sell a story. No wonder he’s won all those awards.

  I haven’t seen any of his movies, I tell her. So how do you know about these awards?

  You haven’t done much of anything yet, she says snarkily. And I pay more attention than you do.

  I still call her the ‘little’ voice inside my head even though she is no longer so little. Since I unleashed her two weeks ago — so that she could help me save myself from being murdered — she’s grown much louder.

  Eager to get away from James Fenway’s much too persuasive voice, I work my way through the edges of the crowd and towards the house. It looks like Storm isn’t going anywhere soon and I am impatient to get started.

  This job offer came when I’d had no money, no friends, no home. Now, for the first time in my life I have a purpose. Find DCK and bring him to justice. But first I have to prove myself by helping to solve this new case. I’m determined to do it. I’m going to make Jennifer Fenway’s killer pay. The fact that Storm called me in must mean that he is not sure if Mustafa Salehi is the guilty party.

  A police officer is guarding the tape that is cordoning off the house. He scowls at me, clearly noting that I don’t belong.

  I fumble in my satchel for my Agency ID badge. It arrived in the post a few days ago, sent by Remi with a little note saying she hoped I was enjoying settling in to my new apartment. The badge is very official looking in its black leather flip case, its shiny silver metal emblem sitting opposite a photo card of me looking a bit out of my depth for my liking. I show it to the police officer. His eyebrows rise. I almost expect him to turn me away, but he lifts up the crime scene tape to admit me into the property.

  Feeling rather stunned at this unexpected new power, I make my way down the path towards the house. Any minute now someone is probably going to stop me. I carefully hook my badge onto my belt. I feel like I should be one of the gawking onlookers rather than one of the officials investigating this murder. My whole life I’ve felt on the outside looking in. This doesn’t feel real yet.

  I smile nervously at a second police officer who is standing guard outside the front door of James Fenway’s sprawling mansion. Then I quickly stop smiling, realizing it must be inappropriate at this solemn time.

  He nods at me. “Ma’am,” he says, and lets me past him.

  Ma’am! As if I was someone important. I cannot help but feel a little thrill, my ego — which I didn’t know I had until now — sitting up and paying attention. Apparently being Agency staff makes me important even to a police officer! I am going to have to do my best to live up to it.

  The front door of the house is slightly ajar. I push it open. Inside it is quiet. Everyone is outside listening to the press conference. I pause in the hallway, feeling like an intruder.

  “Remi?” I call. “Agent Kane?”

  Agents Remi Bronwyn and Leo Kane are Storm’s team. They do not respond. They must be outside too, probably busy interviewing witnesses. Everything I’ve seen of them tells me both are very dedicated to and good at their job. Only the best on Storm’s team.

  I walk down the hallway, catching a glimpse of myself in a large mirror, my jeans and neatly-pressed blouse looking too ordinary and out of place in my plush surroundings. I hadn’t been sure what to wear and, with my first paycheck still a month away, not been able to afford new work clothes.

  I probably shouldn't be so gob-smacked by the tasteful furnishings but I am. Everything unashamedly screams new money. The modern art on the walls, the life-size glass sculpture of naked dancers near the base of the artful staircase, the large picture windows that admit plenty of light.

  A girl could get used to this, observes the little voice approvingly. We could live like this if you tried a little harder. You’re better looking than poor little Jenny Fenway, if you’d bother with makeup.

  I don’t want to live like this, I tell her.

  Everyone wants to live like this, she retorts.

  I walk through a very pleasant lounge and easily find the kitchen. I should probably be heading upstairs to the victim’s bedroom but part of me doesn’t want to go there yet. She was alive just a week ago. All of her things will be there, all of her hopes and dreams left scattered about as if they still mean something. Like my mother’s were. I am not ready to face another set of shattered hopes and dreams.

  I grab a clean mug from the rack beside the sink and fill an electric kettle with water. I find a little glass-fronted case full of a selection of different teas. I pick a fruity one. A few weeks ago I would have never dared do this, but that was before I was nearly murdered. If I want a tea, I’m going to have one. Plus, I’m a psychic. The whole point of me is to walk around absorbing the ambiance in the hope it will spark a vision. And that includes drinking their tea.

  I try to shake away the sudden rush of resentful anger that has come from nowhere. Perhaps it is the memories that come with tea. My adoptive aunt, Mrs Colton, had let me drink it whenever I met with a client. It was the only time she’d let me have some. She’d said it was the perfect psychic prop. She’d bring out a big tea-set made of fancy old-fashioned china and have me make a show of pouring it into dainty cups. Sometimes she’d made me pretend to read tea leaves to make my psychic-ness more convincing. People want a show, she’d said. They needed the props. Despite all of that, I had always enjoyed drinking tea.

  Dearly departed Mrs Colton, says the little voice snidely. You’re well shot of her.

  She’s damn right I am. I bite my lip, feeling guilty about agreeing. Mrs Colton may have been my prisoner and extorted my psychic visions for her own gain, but she hadn’t deserved to be murdered in cold blood.

  She plotted with Dr Carrington to get you locked up in a psychiatric ward, says the little voice. Don’t forget that. You’re lucky the devious pervert didn’t get you killed.

  I move to near the kitchen window and, closing my eyes, tilt my face up towards the sunshine. The Coltons are dead, my biological mother is dead, and I was nearly killed too. Just two weeks ago. And now it seems like death follows me everywhere I go. But the sunlight is pleasantly warm and red on the backs of my eyelids. The world continues turning, as must I.

  I can still hear the distant sounds of the press conference taking place outside. They’ve got to the part where the press are asking questions, shouting over each other to be heard.

  The kettle finishes boiling and clicks off. I pour my tea and take it into the lounge. Feeling drawn towards the gleaming grand piano, I go to it and peruse the framed photographs perched on top. Almost every single one has Jennifer Fenway in it. Glowing golden girl Jennifer winning a gymnastics award, Jennifer in a bikini on a sail boat, Jennifer in a red ball gown with her uncle and his famous friends at the Academy Awards last ye
ar. He is hugging her. She is holding the award. She is not smiling. Not pouting either. Just looking at the camera, every inch the unimpressed teenager.

  I pick it up. My hand brushes the glossy surface of the piano and a vision floods into my mind. Jennifer’s pale naked arms splayed wide over the back of the piano as she clutches it. She is bent over it and someone is behind her. She is laughing. Her half-clothed body is bouncing with every one of his determined thrusts. Feeling repulsed, knowing I have just seen something never meant for my eyes, I put the picture down carefully.

  Jennifer is staring solemnly out of it, as if she is sorry. Gorgeous glorious Jennifer whose image dominates this piano-top where there is not a single picture of her sister. If I’d had a smart phone I would have got it out to google whether Eliza had even been invited to the Academy Awards. Probably not. Whereas little sister Jennifer had got to walk the red carpet.

  Jennifer had clearly been her uncle’s favorite. She seemed to have been Mustafa Salehi’s favorite too. I bet some unpleasant reporter has asked Eliza that question already, whether she’s glad she’ll be the favorite now that her little sister is out of the way.

  I peruse the bookshelf beside the piano, and finally find a picture with Eliza in it. The photo is pushed behind several other frames. In it both girls are younger, Eliza probably around sixteen and Jennifer around thirteen, still gangly, but already the most beautiful thing in the photo. It seems to have been taken three years ago when the girls first came to live with their uncle, shortly after their succubus mother had been admitted into hospital for a drug addiction. The girls had lived with their beloved paternal uncle, James Fenway, ever since.

  “What are you doing?”

  The voice startles me so much that I drop the photograph. I manage to snatch it out of midair just quick enough to stop the glass from smashing. Hot tea sloshes all over my hands and on to the pale cream rug. Cursing, I quickly place the mug on the shelf, and blow cold air onto my stinging hands.

  Looking irritated, Eliza Fenway goes into the kitchen and emerges with a cloth. She uses it to mop up the spilled tea.

  “Sorry,” I mutter.

  “Who are you?” she demands. “A reporter?” She looks angry and scared all at the same time.

  I shake my head. “I’m Diana Bellona. I’m with the Agency.” I show her my badge.

  She looks at it, and now she looks agitated. She glances towards the door as if she hopes her uncle will arrive to rescue her from me.

  “I’m here to help find who did this,” I tell her.

  “It wasn’t Mo!” she bursts out. Then, as if she wishes she hadn’t said this, she hurries into the kitchen, leaving me behind.

  I follow her. “Why do you think it wasn’t Mo?” I ask.

  “It just wasn’t,” she snaps. “Mo would never have cheated on me.”

  “Jennifer’s friend seemed to have thought so,” I say.

  “Jenny,” she says reflexively. “She was Jenny. She didn’t like Jennifer.”

  She is standing over the sink rinsing out the cloth as if she wishes I would just go away. Her shoulders are hunched, defensive.

  “Would you like a cup of tea?” I ask.

  She doesn’t respond for a moment but then she nods resentfully. I switch on the kettle. The still hot water boils quickly. I pour her a cup and take it to her. As I hand it over, I touch her wrist with my other hand, squeezing it gently. Her grief and self-blame wash over me like a suffocating wave.

  I hadn’t expected that. I had touched her on the off chance it might spark a vision. It is all I can do to not snatch my hand away.

  “I’m sorry about your sister,” I say.

  “So is everyone,” she says snidely.

  “You didn’t get along with her?”

  “How do you know that?”

  I shrug.

  “You saw the pictures in the press of her and Mo,” she says accusingly. “You think they were having an affair.”

  “Her friend took pictures of them together on several different occasions. You weren’t in them. Why would your boyfriend be hanging out with your little sister so often?”

  “He’s an idiot, is why,” she mutters.

  She moves to the kitchen table and sits down abruptly. She cups the tea with both hands and inhales its fruity scent deeply before taking a sip. “This was my favorite tea. I couldn’t find it anywhere when I moved out. Uncle James must have it shipped from somewhere special.”

  “It’s good tea,” I say, taking a seat opposite her. “You don’t live here then?”

  She shakes her head. “I moved out when I went to university. I couldn’t wait to get my own life.”

  “That’s understandable.”

  “Is it? I moved out over a year ago. I never came back to visit her. Not once. Is that understandable?”

  “Then how did Mo and Jenny meet?”

  She shrugs. “Randomly. Or maybe not. My sister was always the socialite. Turns out she and her friends somehow managed to get into my university club-night with their stupid fake IDs. She found him. And now he’s been arrested and it is all my fault.”

  “How is it your fault?”

  She seems too distracted to have noticed my question. “He was always better looking than me. Just like her. I thought she must have been trying to take him away, like she took everything away. She was good at that.”

  “Is that what you argued about the day she went missing?”

  She nods bitterly. “I hated her so much. We went to a human high school, you know. Dad was human and didn’t want to send us to a mixed school. Growing up I always thought I was so lucky to be the human one. Lucky that only a few of them hated me. I thought she would have it worse. She showed her powers early. We always knew she’d be a succubus like mum. I thought they’d hate her for being a demon.”

  “Otherkind,” I correct her.

  She shrugs. “What’s the difference? That’s what most people think, isn’t it?”

  “So what happened at school?” I ask.

  “They loved her of course! She was always good at making people love her.”

  “Did she make Mo love her?”

  She looks up at me sharply and her eyes flash with anger. “No. That’s the funny thing. She came to the club hoping to bump into me, she said. It was just like her. She could never admit to needing my help. Only I wasn’t there. She said Mo was nice. She could talk to him. Couldn’t tell him everything though.”

  “What did she need to tell you?”

  She shrugs. “He only met her because of me. And now they think it was him who did it.”

  “I know who did it,” I say.

  She looks at me hard. “What do you know?”

  “The truth. I’m a psychic. It’s my job to know.”

  She continues to stare at me, breathing hard. “It’s not true,” she says. “It isn’t!”

  “We both know it is. You can’t keep denying the truth, Eliza. It will come out in the end.”

  Her lips are trembling. “How do you know?” Her eyes flit wildly around the room. “Is she here now? Did she tell you?”

  I consider telling her she is, but I don’t think I could sell it. Even I don’t believe in ghosts. I shake my head. “Jenny isn’t here. She’s passed on. She’s gone.”

  “Oh God!” She squeezes her eyes shut and tears come pouring out of their corners. Her face has turned red and her mouth turned downwards into a grimace of grief and horror. She keeps shaking her head as if denying the truth will make it go away.

  She speaks through her sobs, the words tumbling out as if she needs to confess and unburden herself. “She came to find me. She wanted to be friends again. She must have known about the tea. She sent me a package of it in the post. Isn’t that a funny thing for a sixteen year old to do? To notice that I might miss the tea?”

  “You have to tell the truth, Eliza,” I tell her softly, reaching for her hand and feeling that horrible outpouring of her grief and self-hatred again. Even so, I hold on,
sensing that she needs the reassuring touch. “The Agency need proof. They need to hear from you what happened.”

  She starts sobbing so hard that her words become barely recognizable. “She needed me. I’m her big sister, but I left her behind. I didn’t want to know.”

  “She still needs you. She’s your little sister. You can give her justice. Only you.”

  The kitchen door bangs open. James Fenway is standing there looking every bit the furious Hollywood hero. “What the hell is going on here?” he roars.

  Eliza starts crying harder and louder. He comes striding over to her and puts his big hand on her slim shoulder. His accusing eyes are on me. “What did you say to her?” he demands.